


fuck-ups don’t fix bullet holes

by Overdressedtokill (SkyeStan)



Series: Killers for Hire (SkyeWard AU) [18]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Killers for Hire, amateur surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 00:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5354174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyeStan/pseuds/Overdressedtokill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>flashback episode. the first time skye fishes a bullet out of grant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fuck-ups don’t fix bullet holes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catteo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catteo/gifts).



Sure. She’s been shot before. It’s kind of in the top-down of the job. 

Same for back-alley surgery. She’s had suspicious people take suspicious bullets out of her shoulders and legs and side. She’s got scars from bad stitches.

But here’s the thing. It’s a tiny thing. 

One. She’s usually got something on her. An oxy or a molly or something that she shouldn’t be putting in her body but always does.

And ALSO. And this is the big thing. She’s always been the one being operated on.

She has no idea how to play amateur surgeon.

“Come on,” Grant says, with that sort of “I’ve got a bullet in me” casualness about him. “You’ve never played operation?”

She helps him onto the table. And she’s not shaking, or anything. Because she’s an adult and a professional and she makes people bleed for a living. So. “The one at St. Agnes was missing most of the pieces.”

Snickering. “God. It’s like your childhood gets sadder every time we talk.”

She scoffs. It’s somehow classic Grant. A complete jerk and a total moron all at once. “Fuck off. You probably got-” 

She swallows. He’s bleeding like, a lot. Probably too much. 

“Do you have anything?” He asks, as she tries to help him out of his jacket. He winces. “Fuck fuck fuck-”

“I can cut it off you,” she says. 

“Absolutely not,” he says. “This is Armani.”

“It has a _bullet hole in it.”_

He sighs. “Cut it off.”

“Thanks,” she says. “And no, I’m out. Booze?”

“Nothing?” he asks. “You. Are you holding out on me?”

“I promise you, I have absolutely nothing on me.”

A noise of understanding. “Weird. Doesn’t seem like you.”

And she gets this feeling that he doesn’t believe her. That she’s enjoying this, or something, that his pain is amusing to her.

And usually it is! Slamming him against a wall? Great! “Accidentally” hitting him with a car? A classic! Wrestling him to the ground while they’re both naked? Nothing better.

 

 

But none of those are him possibly dying. Even the car thing, because she’d been moving very slowly and he’d refused to get out of the way. He’d deserved it.

“Maybe you don’t know me that well,” she says. “I really don’t use that much.”

He gives her a look. A studying glance. “I guess.”

“Grant.”

“What?”

“You have to believe me.”

He tilts his head. “Getting a little high on the pathos, Skye.”

She’d smack him on the bicep, if there wasn’t a bullet in him.

“Oh, fuck you. I’m trying to tell you that I don’t want to see you in pain, asswipe.”

“Aw, kid,” he says. “Next you’ll be telling me you just want world peace.”

Jacket’s off. She pulls the pieces of it off him, pointedly ignoring the sad little look on his face. “I’m cutting off your shirt, too.”

“Hot.”

“Do you want to die?” she asks. “Like, clarifying question. Would you rather bleed out?”

“With you on the job, pretty sure that’s where we’re headed,” he says. “You promised booze?”

“It’s your safehouse.”

“You know where I keep things.”

 

 

Gross. He makes it sound like they’re practically married. “Shirt first,” she says, cutting through white cotton.

She takes a fraction of an instant to appreciate his back. It’s so much nicer looking when there isn’t a bullet in his upper shoulder.

“Lay on your stomach. I’ll get the stuff.”

“You’re gonna need more than the booze,” he says. “Cabinet by the sink. Lighter, needle, thread.”

“Gauze?” she asks.

“Use my shirt.”

She’s actually doing this. She’s actually doing this. “How are you so calm?”

“I get shot a lot.”

“Yeah, so do I,” she says. “And it hurts like a fucking mother every time.”

“Do you mean a mother fucker?”

She whips her head around to glare at him. “Are you even in pain?”

He gives her a cocky little grin. “Skye. I’m literally dying.”

Well. When he says it like that. “Right.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m not.”

“You’ve picked one hell of a time to get squeamish, Skye.”

She takes the lighter into a heavy hand. Squeezes it against her palm. “I’m not fucking squeamish, okay?”

“I hope not,” he says. “You literally do this to people for a living.”

_So do you,_ she thinks, but finds herself unable to say it. Weird. Pathetic.

“I’m a better shot,” she manages.

“Debatable.”

 

 

He’s trying to make her laugh. Probably. In the way he always does, which is by being the biggest asshole possible.

It’s not really working.

“How do I do this?” she asks. “You’ve done it before, right?”

“And you’ve gotten it done,” Grant says. “You should know this.”

“Thanks,” Skye says, dropping the supplies on the table. “Helpful.”

“The joys of being strung out during surgery, I guess,” he says. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Grant.”

He looks up at her. “I’m teasing.”

“You have to move your arm,” she says, nudging his bicep. “Lay it flatter.”

“Really having a hard time moving, here.”

She keeps forgetting. She keeps forgetting because she wants to pretend it’s not happening. This usually works. “I’ll help you.”

She finds a gentleness that she’s never associated with her own hands. Grant’s movement is stiff (Tin Man, she thinks,) but steady. He hisses, low enough that he thinks she won’t hear.

“You can be in pain,” she tells him. “You don’t have to like, fake brave for me.”

“Hiding my pain in front of beautiful women makes me seem more masculine,” he says, with every bit of seriousness she’s come to except from him. “Besides. I’m fine.”

“You are bleeding onto this table.”

“Relatively fine,” he says.

 She can do this. She has to fucking do this. “Tell me how to do this.”

“Clean the wound.”

A pause.

 

 

“Pour some of the alcohol onto my shirt and wipe away the blood,” he says.

She wets his shirt like it’s a goddamn cotton ball, and when she presses it to the wound-

He’s silent. Oddly so.

Funny. She feels like she’s in screaming pain already. “Now what?”

“Now-” His voice falters. Cracks. The only sign of weakness. “Now you need to cut the bullet out.”

“Oh.” 

Her hands are already coated in blood! Such fun! Such a crazy bonding experience!

She’s losing it. She is absolutely losing it.

“Skye, stay with me.”

“I’m not the one dying,” she says.

“Burn the knife with the lighter to clean it.”

“I feel like this is a tutorial, or something,” she says. “Press A to burn. Hold R2 to keep knife steady.”

“If that helps you, do it.”

“Are you ready?”

“Sure.”

She has the utmost desire to shut her eyes. 

Which would, in all likelihood, cause her to miss the hole and stab Grant in the back with her bowie knife.

Sure, she’s thought about it! But now is not the time!

“Okay. Okay. You’re going to be just fine, got it?”

“Are you telling me?” Grant asks. “That’s some bedside manner there.”

“Baby, please, you’ve been super helpful but I need you to just- Shut-”

He gushes blood like a fucking fountain.

 

 

She screams. Not a prolonged scream, but certainly something to show her utter horror.

He growls. Not quite like an animal, but something like it. This raw, terrible noise in his throat, the only indication he’ll give her that she’s hurting him.

“The alcohol,” he manages, in the weakest voice she’s ever heard. “You need to use it as you pull the bullet out.”

Is she crying? Oh man. Oh man, that’s sad as shit. She’s not even sad, she’s just never been this stressed out in her fucking life. He’s probably not crying. He gets bullets pulled out of his back all the goddamn time, apparently.

She pours it over the wound.

“God-” He starts, in a shout. And silences himself. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Fuck, fuck.”

“Grant, you can yell,” Skye says. “I’m about to pull it out, okay? We’re almost done.”

“Not entirely,” he says. “You still have to stitch me- GOD DAMN IT, SKYE!”

“It’s out,” she says. “Oh my God. I did it. It’s out. Holy fuck.”

“Okay, congrats, shit, shit- Stop pouring liquor in my wound!” He slams his palm against the table. “That really fucking stings!”

“Most people would be inconsolable right now,” Skye points out. “So.”

 

 

“Light the needle,” he mumbles. “And stitch me up.”

She ignores how bloody her hands are. At this point, it’s moot.

“Are you okay?”

“Fantastic, Skye. Lightheaded.”

“Oh God, oh fuck-”

“Joking. Mostly. Not really.”

“Okay. Okay. I’m gonna thread the needle I’m going to- My hands are really red you are bleeding so much and-”

“Keep yourself steady. Deep breaths.”

“You sound strained.”

He manages to huff. “I’m in an incredible amount of-” He pauses. Clears his throat. “Pain.”

“Please hold still,” she says. “If you move, I’m absolutely going to manage to sew your arm to your side.”

“So reassuring,” he says. “Maybe I should just die. Thinking it would be less painful.”

She jabs him with the needle. “You’re not dying unless I want you to die.”

“And do you?”

The first stitch. “No.”

“You’re so sweet.”

He’s getting worse at masking the pain in his voice. 

So she goes faster, thinking it will help.

He manages a whimper.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says. “Okay? I’m really bad at this but I’m almost- Just let me-”

“If I pass out, don’t think less of me,” he says.

“Shut up,” she says. “I’m done. Do I burn the wound now that it’s closed?”

“Jesus Christ,” he says. “No! Why would you even-”

“To make sure it’s clean!”

“Use the liquor, Skye!”

“You told me to stop!”

“That was before you closed it!”

 

 

She opts for half the bottle while he seethes in pain.

“Please tell me you used something cheap.”

“I grabbed what’s closest.”

“It’s the expensive gin, isn’t it?”

“Well,” she says, finally allowing herself a long swill. “What kind of asshole keeps expensive liquor in a safehouse?”

“Give me the goddamn bottle,” he says. 

She takes another sip, then obliges.

He drinks like he intends to finish it. Which is funny, given that it has the taste and content of rubbing alcohol. “God damn it. You are so fucking bad at surgery.”

“I told you I was!” she protests. “And it was that or dying, so-”

“I’m probably going to scar,” he says.

“You’ve got plenty.”

“Now I’ll have one to remember you by,” he says. “This one, and the one from the time you stabbed me.”

“YOU STABBED ME FIRST!”

He tilts his head to grin at her. “Help me sit up?” 

She hooks her arm around his waist. His good arm loops over her shoulders. 

“You’re so fucking heavy,” she whines. “God.”

“Muscle mass, kiddo,” he says. “You wouldn’t know, with those noodle arms.”

“I owe you so many slaps for the comments you’ve been making,” she says, as he hops off the table. He’s not super steady on his feet, but he’s not leaning on her to walk anymore so.

Progress?

 

 

“Okay, Skye,” he says. “I’m sure you do.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“And yet-” He reaches for the liquor over the sink with his good arm. “You saved my life.”

“Should you really keep drinking?” she says. She shows him her hands. “You’ve given me a lot of blood here, pal.”

“I’m fine. Just in agonizing pain.”

“So take a nap.”

“Your health advice is as solid as your stitch work,” he says, opening the bottle. He wrinkles his nose. “Can rum go bad?”

“No, dummy. Booze doesn’t go bad.”

He shrugs. “Whatever.”

“Give it,” she says. “If you’re polishing off the liquor cabinet, I’m joining.”

“I think I have some flat soda in the mini-fridge, if you want to mix.”

“Should we maybe clean the blood off the table?”

He laughs. “Do you want to?”

“Ew, no. You do it. It’s your blood.”

“Then shut up,” he says. “And drink with me.”

She grins without meaning to. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

He returns the expression, with a hint of affection. She hadn’t been expecting that. It looks weird on him. “What? You want a kiss, or something?”

She wrenches the bottle from his hand. “Nah.”

He watches her drink, with that same hint in his eyes. “Thanks.”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Don’t make it weird.”

“Eh,” he grabs something else from the cabinet. “Too late.”


End file.
